


Build Our Altar Here

by MadameReveuse



Category: Paradise Lost - John Milton
Genre: Demons, Hell, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, gay demons - Freeform, one-sided crush OR IS IT, sex mentions but nothing explicit, war for heaven, we are demons we are gays, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 08:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: The Fall and what happens after, as narrated by the demon Beelzebub.





	Build Our Altar Here

**Author's Note:**

> I genuinely don't know if this is good, i just wanna get on with my life so here it is
> 
> Feedback v much appreciated :)

It begins with a nudge in the middle of the night.

“Sleepest thou, companion dear?”

The entity who will eons hence be known as Beelzebub does not sleep. How can he, when the Morningstar is by his side, and incessantly poking his shoulder. He rises. Drinks the words from that beloved mouth of freedom, of self-reliance, of as near as unto gods as they can manage to get. They start a war. It’s as prosaic as that.

 

* * *

 

Lucifer, to his brothers and all those who knew him, has never precisely been a warlike angel. He is fond of music, of the stars, of flying, higher than any other angel may reach, of lofty firmaments and lofty thoughts and lofty words, and Raphael or Gabriel needs to clap him on the shoulder sometimes and lovingly remind him that it’s in good form to have one’s feet touch the ground occasionally. He enjoys sparring with Michael, excels at it, but he enjoys the stars more.

So it was then. It is not so now.

Since the first day, when Ramiel almost stabbed their standard-bearer Azazel, and Lucifer pushed him aside and ran his spear through the angel, Beelzebub and his fellow Captains know to look for their leader where the battle is worst. He retires to their makeshift fortress during the lulls in the fight spattered with ichor; Beelzebub can taste it on his lips, on his tongue.

Some discover their taste for war, now, and their reverence of Lucifer grows with every time he plunges himself headlong into danger so that one of his compatriots may be spared. He is so unlike the father in that, does not send his legion off to die for him, he is there with them on the front lines, antagonizing his former brothers, howling defiance, ichor frothing from his mouth as his blade clashes with Michael’s. The wrath, the fury, the wild exultation in his eyes is an awe-inspiring sight to behold, and Beelzebub finds his angelic heart beating in devotion for his fierce commander. This is an angel of the Lord no longer. This is something that there is no word for yet.

(There will be, later. He will bear it with bitter, stubborn pride.)

In the end, their effort is not enough. In the end there is the Fall, maddening, searing, and yet, what a rush brought on by speed and velocity and… well, the impact with the ground is purely painful.

It’s Lucifer, of course it is, who finds Beelzebub lying motionless in the middle of a smoking crater. “You and I both,” he remarks at the former cherub’s state of shock, laconically, and offers a hand up. They stand upon the plains of ash and pat each other down for injuries, soon interrupted by the dark walls of their vast, cavernous dungeon suddenly illuminated by the shooting stars that are others falling. More and more and more of them. The shower lasts a while.

They limp across the plains, the sulphurous ground burning beneath their feet, leaning on their spears and each other’s shoulders, supporting each other like drinking companions returning home from a night of revelries (not that any such thing is heard of yet in the Heavens or on Earth or the newly minted Hell). Lucifer is dragging his wings behind him through the dirt; they’re bent at some awkward angles, but he sharply waves it off when Beelzebub brings it to his attention. There’s no time for this, he says. What they must do now is find all the others and make the best of the situation here.

 

* * *

 

The Fallen see Lucifer still standing, they hear him speak, and something astonishing occurs. More and more of them start picking themselves up, brushing the dirt off their wings and milling about. Hushed whispers turn into animated conversation. Mammon and Mulciber walk a little ways off from the main host, huddle together and start muttering about iron ore and gold in them there hills and walls and battlements. Suddenly, scrolls of blueprints appear out of nowhere and are shoved under Lucifer’s nose for deliberation, and the Morningstar perks up for the first time today. Beelzebub steps closer and hears talk of mining and building and taming the unforgiving environment and who could do the best stoneworks. At some point they grab Azazel by the sleeve and pull him into the conversation, and suddenly gems and silver and ornaments are involved. Droves of Fallen get to work, spears and flaming swords fashioned into crude mining tools. Pandemonium rises by the work of their hands. That’s how they will do things now, Lucifer says: by their own hands or none. Hell is their dungeon, but it can become their home. Although it is important that they do not grow complacent and continue the war effort in whichever ways they can, the fallen angel who will become known as Beelzebub sees a future for them here. They can expand outwards from the Pandemonium, tame the landscape, make Hell into something actually habitable. The Sulphur is not so bad. Nor are the lakes of fire, or the plains of ash, or the noxious sludge that passes for rivers in this place. They can adapt. They must. Picturing it before his inner eye, the progress they will make in time, keeps him from despairing.

Beelzebub has always had a liking for statecraft, politics, the silken web of diplomacy. Untapped potential in Heaven, as it were without conflict until very recently. But now he gazes around at the tens of thousands of demons assembled in council and approves of what meets his eye.

The debate is lively. Lucifer on his elevated throne has taken it upon himself to moderate, but he does not domineer the discussion in the way the Metatron would back at ho… back in Heaven. Lucifer mostly listens, chin propped upon his hand, genuinely attentive. This is the kind of kingdom Beelzebub had hoped for and envisioned, back when the first thoughts of abolishing the father’s order started establishing themselves: a realm of free discourse, a sovereign encouraging the people to speak their minds freely in his (no capital H here) presence, without fear of a fall from grace. And then Lucifer volunteers himself to take on the Earth mission all alone, and Beelzebub knows that he would give his life for the Morningstar if the necessity arose, that he will go on to give his everything besides.

 

* * *

 

There is now a wide path that leads up to Earth, and humanity is theirs to have fun with. No one has to brave the abyss now like Lucifer did. At first the Fallen are hesitant about ascending again, but some of the braver ones strike out relatively soon after Lucifer’s initial return, and come back bearing tales of adventure that inspires others to give Earth a try. Beelzebub doesn’t go for a good long while, and when he does, humanity has spread across the globe and presents all kinds of opportunities for some fun and blasphemy. Inspiring them to idolatry and subsequently getting worshipped as a god is heady business. He gets his name then, and an array of titles. Lord of the Flies, they call him, as his altar is abuzz with them, swarming over the fresh, bloody sacrifices. Beelzebub comes to like flies. Mostly, however, he is busy managing Hell’s day-to-day affairs in Lucifer’s stead while the Morningstar is off roaming Earth himself, tempting and ensnaring and seducing. Not that Lucifer spends most of his time on Earth. He just…

Lucifer’s passion for his empire is all-encompassing and all-consuming, but he has no mind for the myriad small transactions that maintain the kingdom. He is all for large projects, social change, exciting novelties, progress. All the detailed busywork is Beelzebub’s to do.

He genuinely doesn’t mind. He is the reason Hell runs smoothly, and that is the level of power he desires. And he is no Morningstar. Privately, Beelzebub suspects that he does not have it in him to lead without superior guidance to inform his decisions. He does not vie for the post of King of Hell.

No one wants to be King of Hell.

 

* * *

 

They are demons. They should strive, they should squabble and compete, they should climb over each other for Lucifer’s throne. They don’t. It stands to reason that the king of Hell takes the brunt of Heaven’s wrath.

Ever since the Fall, Lucifer’s ageless face has started looking careworn, an entirely alien thing for an angel to look (after all, what cares plague an angel? What doubts? Every angel knows certainty in the Lord). His wings, when he bothers to expose them, still droop. He doesn’t fly as often as he used to. When he is too lenient in his judgement with the other Fallen, to the point at which he appears detached and careless, it is out of a guilt he carries deep down in his proud, vainglorious heart. Everyone knows he blames himself for the Fall. And, as he’s wont to put it, how does one punish a body that is already in Hell?

The Fallen, among themselves, know that they were not forced into the war on Heaven. They listened to what Lucifer had to say, and they chose to take up with him, and they lost, and they fell, and there is no way to convince their matchless leader that every second of everyone’s torment is not his personal fault. For all their lofty visions of complete equity, there seems to be a barrier in place that separates him from them, and it is in part composed of their reverence for him, and in part of his self-chastising that seems absurdly out of place in Hell.

 

* * *

 

It becomes the custom for every demon returning from Earth to come bearing gifts from the surface for their nearest and dearest. Mammon brings gems to Azazel’s workshop that cannot be found in Hell, and Azazel works them into jewelry of splendor hitherto unseen in any sphere. Abaddon, his hands coarse and blemished from centuries of handling the blade, is awkward as he carries silks and laces to adorn Belial (and to bribe Belial’s favor, for a night, as if such a bribe was ever needed). Leviathan gifts her sister Belphegor the softest of pillows to rest upon. And Beelzebub, well…

He is become the archdemon of the deadly sin of gluttony, now. When humanity invents a little thing called chocolates, he brings a box down and presents it to Lucifer on his throne of obsidian. The image of pale, slender fingers lifting a little piece of chocolate-coated sin out of its package, bringing it up to those sensual lips, the flash of tongue darting out, serpent-like, for a split-second taste, haunts Beelzebub’s dreams at night. It baffles him, this sense of unfulfilled longing. He is allowed to share his sovereign’s bed, has been since before even the Fall, and does so on the regular. What is there left to desire?

“What would you have me do?” Lucifer asks back when the question is posited to him, raising his head from where it rested in Beelzebub’s lap.

“Nothing,” Beelzebub assures, idle fingers toying with a strand of Lucifer’s hair, wrapping it around the devil’s left horn. But then something in him is compelled to add: “I would have you smile like you used to.”

Lucifer smiles. As all his smiles since the Fall, it looks as though he’s faintly in pain. “Is that good?”

Beelzebub tells him that it will have to do.

 

* * *

 

When they sleep together (truly, that is, _sleep_ together) Beelzebub is woken, periodically, by weeping. Every demon is, occasionally, by their own or someone else’s. That is how things have been since the Fall, since there sits something empty within all of them where something else once was, something that has been cut off, brutally so, which they do not address in so many words. There is nothing he can do in these moments but reach out a hand and twine it with Lucifer’s, to wrap an arm around his liege’s waist and pull him closer. That is all anyone can do.

The love of angels is all-encompassing and tranquil, imbued by the Lord. The love of demons is hard-won and fierce, something they dredge from the abyss that they inhabit, something they came by on their own, imbued by nothing and nobody. Maybe that makes it base, profane, as Heaven would certainly want anybody to believe, but Beelzebub is not so sure. To him, it simply is a fact of life. Demons were once angels. They are bonded just the same way they were before the Fall, the lot of them. That is how things are.

And besides, each other are all they have in this place.

 

* * *

 

They do adapt to Hell, though. Wings start turning greyish, then even darker from constantly being covered in soot and ash. The ground used to be unbearable to simply walk on, but these days, no one notices it anymore. The formerly torturous lakes of liquid fire turn into a nice spot for a dip, like a sauna or a very hot jacuzzi. The world upstairs sometimes seems… too bright. Too many colors, too much light. They all see in the dark just fine. Azazel fashions special jewelry for demon horns; horn carvings are all the rage for a century or so. Oh yes, many demons are looking decidedly less angelic these days than when they started out. Many change their forms along with their names, competing to look intimidating, wicked, inhuman, vile or brutish. Beelzebub makes select changes to his own form, to befit his title of Lord of the Flies. He doesn’t change himself too much. There is a reason for that, even if it is not one he likes to admit, to himself or others.

Lucifer has changed almost nothing. He wears horns when he remembers to, more as a show of solidarity than a fashion statement. He keeps his face and body the way they always were. The Morningstar remains a creature of some vanity.

 

* * *

 

Hell is… more worldly than Heaven. More perilous, too, and more unpredictable. It keeps them on their toes. From an ideological position, Beelzebub can appreciate that the nature of their environment keeps them from growing complacent in it, but practically, whenever the Styx breaks its dams yet again, whenever an entire ring gets flooded with lava, whenever the earth quakes and makes a part of the structure of Pandemonium itself crumble, rendering it temporarily uninhabitable, there is the very real danger of finding himself getting roped into a work detail to fix the damage. Everyone pitches in on those, from the lowliest guardian demon to the Morningstar himself, for so it has been decreed, Lucifer’s notions of equity bearing strange fruit once more. Then again, the first time he, on just such a work detail, observes a bead of sweat break on Lucifer’s pale brow, he feels hot and cold all over.

“You,” he blurts out.

Lucifer half-turns to face him. He’s got his hair up in a bun again, twisted around one of his horns. “Hmm?” he demands.

“My starlight.” Beelzebub reaches up (he has to tiptoe a little) and kisses the little drop of perspiration away, licks it off the Morningstar’s skin. Lucifer’s mouth opens in a gentle gasp.

“Ah,” he says.

Beelzebub takes him and fucks him right there, out in the open plain. What is there to keep secret? What shame in someone noticing? Everyone here is just like them. He plucks the moans from the devil’s mouth, and it is right, it is good, it is blessed in a way that has nothing to do with the Lord.

 

* * *

 

“Beel,” Lucifer says one night, “Why do you reckon we even have circadian rhythms anymore? Time is a construct of humanity. There is no observable day and night down here. Why do we pick certain times to go to sleep and wake up again?”

Time may be a construct of humanity, but as far as Beelzebub is concerned, the clock by the bedside says 3 am and that is where this thought experiment begins and ends. He burrows his face into a pillow. “My prince, shut up.”

“I’m just saying,” Lucifer insists.

“I reckon we mimic the circadian rhythms of humans because all things considered, we spend a lot of time up there with them.”

“That’s probably it.”

Beelzebub hums affirmingly into the pillow and hopes that Lucifer will just go back to sleep now. But, as the proverb says, evil never sleeps.

“Do you ever wonder how…?” He pauses, clearly waiting to be prompted to continue, but after centuries as the devil’s right hand and hype-man, Beelzebub finds he deserves some rest. Lucifer huffs at the silence and then continues anyway. “I remember back in the garden, I overheard Raphy saying something to Adam.”

Oh, boy. This is going to be a long diatribe, all the way back to the garden. It’s also slightly irritating to hear the casual use of the pet name for the archangel Raphael. Sometimes Beelzebub wishes he could do something or say something that would make Lucifer stop thinking of the archangels as his brothers. That will stop his eyes from straying wistfully towards the Heavens. Lucifer won’t discuss it, ever, but the loss of his siblings left a hole in him of almost the same magnitude as that other vacuum in all of them where the father’s grace used to sit. Beelzebub still remembers with a disturbing clarity the way Michael grabbed him by the scruff of the neck like a kitten, immobilizing him as Uriel unsheathed his special knife, as he reached inside, prying him open, severing that small but crucial bit of him that nothing, not their camaraderie, not even fornication with the Morningstar, can quite replace…

He swallows heavily. “Yes? What did he say?”

“Well, I remember Adam asking if there were other worlds out there in the stars with life on them. Raphy basically just told him not to worry about it, which is not a no.”

Beelzebub can’t help but smile. He doesn’t know, of course, that centuries hence, humanity will start exploring outer space. But he does know them as keen astronomers, always gazing with their telescopes. That little bit of defiance delights him, and he suspects it delights Lucifer all the more. Maybe one day the humans will find the Morningstar, the actual one up in the sky.

“Do you think life exists up there?” Lucifer asks. “Did He create it too, or are there other gods? Are the stars their domains, like Earth is His? Do they also have angels and demons and another devil?”

“I’m going to give you the same advice that Raphael gave Adam,” Beelzebub says and yawns. “Don’t worry too much about it. Just come back to bed, _helel_.”

And as always, that does it. Lucifer slips off the windowsill and underneath the covers where Beelzebub rests.

“Why were you looking out the window anyway?” Beelzebub asks. “This is Hell. There are not any stars.”

Lucifer sighs. “I know.”

It is enough to guess at the why. Beelzebub turns to face his prince and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, that one stubborn one that keeps falling into his face. “There is one star,” he murmurs. “The brightest one. The best one.”

“Oh, shut up.” Lucifer bats at him with a playful hand. The demon’s eyes have adjusted to the dark well enough over the centuries to spot the blush dusting the devil’s face.

In his heart of hearts he has to admit that he lives for these moments. This is better than sin, better than being worshipped, better than the wind beneath his wings. He would give all that for Lucifer, all that and much more.

 

* * *

 

“I love you,” he tells the devil once. It’s with an air of desperation that he utters the words at all.

And “I love you too,” Lucifer replies, as easy and casual as breathing. Beelzebub suspects that the words don’t carry the same meaning to the both of them.

When Lucifer says _love_ , he thinks of the fire-forged bond that connects every demon here, that connects them to the Pandemonium. To Beelzebub, love is that too, of course, but primarily, it’s strands of pale hair, the rare flashes of a brilliant smile, hushed whispers under the velvet night sky in Heaven. It’s the way Lucifer’s mouth shapes around the word _freedom_ , the way it also shapes around a moan when he’s riding him, the way Lucifer will sometimes whisper the names of his estranged brothers in his sleep, so full of longing… the salty taste of his tears in the dead of night.

“You cannot know,” he mutters. “You cannot know.”

Lucifer sits down next to him, nudging his side. “Cannot know what?” At Beelzebub’s silence, he nudges again. “Come now, Beel, spit it out.”

Not knowing anything vexes the devil. Beelzebub knows this. It brings a spark of intrigue, of life to Lucifer’s eyes for the first time in millennia.

Of late, ever since the death and speedy recovery of Christ, something has been different in Hell. Lucifer has been withdrawing himself from even the other archdemons, even his closest confidant. He’s begun to lose interest in Earth. He rarely flies anymore. He now appears detached from everyone and everything, barely a presence in Hell most of the time.

Now, they’ve all been running on fumes for far too long. Every demon copes in a different way. Abaddon and Moloch run rampant on the surface, causing strife wherever they go. Asmodeus and Belial fuck the pain away. Mammon hoards. Beelzebub… well, in accordance with his sin, he has to admit he sometimes eats his feelings. Lucifer has never really found one tried-and-true coping mechanism save for brooding or distracting himself, and now he seems to have run out of distractions. He seems… worn out. Beelzebub has wondered sometimes how long it would take. This seemingly endless fount of manic energy has kept the devil afloat for an admirable while, but it had to run dry eventually.

He takes human lovers sometimes, and every single one of them is different from all the ones before and totally unique and the sole source of light in the Morningstar’s life and it’s… fine. It is fine. They die eventually and it is _fine_ by Beelzebub.

He takes Lucifer’s hands now. “I am aware of your regard for us. For all of us… every demon here. But the way I… the way we all revere you, it is different. You, who revere nothing, cannot know.”

To say that his words do not have the intended effect is putting it lightly.

Lucifer pulls his hands away, out of Beelzebub’s grip. “Is that so?” he asks. “That is how things are, then?”

“What I meant to say is…”

“Should I be thus sundered from everyone then, forever? Alone and apart?” His voice cracks on the last word and Beelzebub realizes he has made a mistake. Angels very much operate in groups, and the Fallen have kept up that tradition. No one is ever alone in Heaven or Hell. The concept is entirely unheard of. Enjoying solitude is yet another concept for humans.

“Now, listen… my liege…”

“Your _liege?_ Have I become unto a God? Am I to end up like Him, matchless and glorified on my elevated throne, my host trembling before me in fear of reproach? I cannot… no, I will not, I shall not!”

Beelzebub does not know what to do with that sudden outburst, and it turns out the decision is not his to make. A sudden beat of wings, and he is alone.

 

* * *

 

He walks all the way up to Lucifer’s rooms at the very top of the highest tower of the Pandemonium, heart in hand, like a sinner striding up to the confessional. When he finds the door locked, he spreads his own rarely used wings and flutters in through the window.

He finds the devil indulging in a bottle of the special liquor they produce down here (it started as Beelzebub’s own failed attempt to recreate the manna of Heaven, resulting in a tar-like liquid that got them all raucously intoxicated).

“Drinking and crying, huh? Mind if I join you?”

“Leave my presence,” Lucifer says tartly, wiping at his eyes.

Just this once, the archdemon ignores a direct order. “My prince, I have confession to make.”

“Do I look like a bloody priest?”

“You know…” Beelzebub starts. He knows he should probably pick and choose his next words carefully, but there just hasn’t been time for that, and there isn’t now. A pre-arranged speech won’t save him here. “You know, I love this place. I derive great pleasure from being a duke of Hell. But sometimes, really, I miss Heaven.”

Lucifer sets his drink down. He says nothing.

“There are moments in which… I miss our father, and I wish to go home, and I miss being so filled by His grace as we haven’t been for millennia. I even miss… sometimes, I would look to the skies and see you soaring with the other archangels, and I would wish I could be up there with you, to share in these moments of your joy, but I was a mere cherub so I would fantasize… I would have it be like that again, would erase the whole rebellion if it meant seeing you happy and wholesome as you once were.”

Lucifer directs a dark look into the depths of his half-filled glass. “There is no going back. For any of us.”

“I know. It is another fantasy. Completely idle.”

“Then why are you telling me this now?”

Beelzebub looks at him, meets the devil’s eyes head-on. “You should see I’m not afraid of you. Not like we used to fear the wrath of the Almighty. I know you will not smite me, or torture me or send me from your side for admitting an uncomfortable truth. You are unlike him, _helel_.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Please, out of all things, don’t forbid me that. I must express my love for you in some way.”

Lucifer blinks at him. An immaculate eyebrow is raised. “Your love.”

“Yes, my love.” Beelzebub takes a deep breath. “It’s not… what I said earlier, I… I spoke covetously. I spoke as someone longing to keep you to myself, when I know that I must share you with your realm and everyone in it. I do not love you in the way we used to love the father, not at all, I simply… simply love you as one body loves another. You know, like the humans do.”

Lucifer tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “You’d grace me with a romance? Is that what you’re implying?”

Beelzebub does not know why he’s so surprised. Of course Lucifer has spent as much time around humans as anyone. Of course he’d know what romantic love is. He feels his heart about ready to leap from his chest when he replies, “If you would have me.”

He closes his eyes, readying himself for the inevitable rejection. “If not, of course, it will not alter in any way—” His eyes fly open when he feels a light touch to his hand.

“My dearest,” Lucifer says, and there is something soft but also immeasurably sorrowful in it. “My dearest, all these years? From the very beginning? Even in Heaven? Why didn’t you say something?”

“I figured, ah…” Beelzebub licks his very dry lips. “You wouldn’t welcome… a mere cherub…”

“ _Why_ does that _matter?”_

Well, why indeed? Are they not in Hell? Are they not as close to equals here as they can get? Sure, Lucifer has always dreamt of total equity among his demons. But yet, he is the Morningstar. Why would he, in his glory, deign to take note of Beelzebub?

“Dearest companion, do you not remember the promise I made you, on the eve of the rebellion?” Lucifer continues. A promise? Ah, yes. He’d said…

“You said you wanted to share it all with me.”

“And have I not? I meant what I said. It was not victory I got to share with you, and I have nowhere near everything I meant to offer you to my name. But I stand by my word… and I’m sorry for making you wait for so long.” He leans in for a kiss then, one of the rare few times he has initiated such an action. Beelzebub is too surprised to appreciate it as he should, but it is nonetheless sweet.

“I’m sorry,” Lucifer repeats, a murmur against Beelzebub’s lips. “I was… oblivious. It was never my intention to cause you any pain.”

The archdemon can hardly remember how to breathe. “You were… going through something.”

“Everyone here has been going through something for millennia now. It has ceased to be a good excuse for my conduct a long time ago.”

“You couldn’t know.” Even when embroiled in battle during the rebellion, his heart hasn’t beat as fast. “I could have said something.”

Lucifer merely sighs and kisses Beelzebub again. And oh, his lips are infinitely soft. He kisses like he’s drowning, and Beelzebub wants to drown too. He wants to lose himself in this completely, never wants to do anything anymore but kiss the devil. Let the world crumble around them. Let judgement day dawn. There is only this.

When Lucifer, predictably, breaks away first, Beelzebub chases his mouth, craving it with an intensity becoming of his sin. “I want,” he gasps, and he knows he’s babbling but he can’t stop himself, “you, it’s always been you, from the beginning, I am yours, only yours, forever.”

Lucifer brings their foreheads together, the tips of their horns bumping into each other. “I cannot promise you all of the same,” he mutters, and there’s genuine regret. “There will be others that I won’t be able to abstain from. But forever, yes, that I can do.”

Beelzebub nods. He knows the Morningstar is not for him to keep to himself. Lucifer has gone up to Earth quite frequently to snag a taste of humanity that he can never resist. They are his forbidden fruit, the humans: one dalliance, one bite is never enough. He keeps going back for more, a glutton in his own right.

But he also always inevitably returns here, to the side of his companion, who has been there from the beginning and will be there until the end.

“I’ll hold you to forever,” Beelzebub concludes.

“You’ll have me. You always had me.” Lucifer’s arms encircle the archdemon, pulling him close. “My love,” he whispers, as if trying out the phrase. It sends a shiver down Beelzebub’s spine.

“Let’s take this to the bed,” he suggests, and this they do.

 


End file.
